Pulling Japan from its socialist roots; The largest opposition party's No. 4 man is 38, savvy and focused on just one thing: wresting power from the "socialist" party better known as the LDP - Upfront

Japan, Inc., Sept, 2002 by Sumie Kawakami

JAPAN IS A COUNTRY of political stagnation. Despite the rapid socioeconomic changes the country has gone through in the postwar period, it has been ruled by one party--the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)--since 1955, except for a brief time in 1993-1994. This system is in part responsible for Japan's rapid economic expansion, but it is obvious that today's Japan is filled with problems that the system cannot deal with. With once-popular Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's credibility heading south, where will Japanese politics go from here? Does Japan have any viable opposition party that could challenge the LDP's dominance and really make a difference? Can the largest opposition party--the Democratic Party of Japan, or Minshuto--provide a real alternative? Yukio Edano, No. 4 in the Minshuto hierarchy, claims it can.

Minshuto has 124 upper house seats out of 480 and 58 lower house seats out of 247, yet the world knows little about its policies. While the country talks of what will happen in the post-Koizumi era, is Minshuto doing anything to prepare? Does it have any plans?

Minshuto's roots go back to the dramatic political victory in 1993 by Morihiro Hosokawa's coalition, which grabbed power from the LDP but could only hang on for less than a year. The period was the culmination of a boom in small political parties. But the coalition was a fragile mosaic of small parties that was doomed to fail. Minshuto was founded in 1998 by members of these small parties, plus some members of the Japan Socialist Party (JSP), now known as the Social Democratic Party. Minshuto has been buoyed by the popularity of Naoto Kan and Yukio Hatoyama, the two top officials in the party.

Edano is right behind them. He is the deputy chief cabinet secretary in the party's so-called 'Next Cabinet.' Lately Minshuto members have been saying Hatoyama and Kan are too old and a new generation of leaders needs to emerge if the party is to give the LDP a run for its money. The Japanese media has focused its spotlight on Edano, who at 38, is still a youngster in the Japanese political world.

Preparing for office

As far as Edano is concerned, Minshuto should be focused on just one thing: preparing for a political takeover. "As an opposition party, 80 or 90 percent of our job is that," he says. "The remaining 10 percent would be to tell the public what is wrong with the ruling regime. But, that would ultimately lead us to a political takeover. So, yes, our job is to take over the regime. And that's the way it should be."

Edano became famous because of his involvement in national HIV issues with Kan in the 1990s. He later got deeply involved in the so-called 'Financial Diet Sessions' in 1998. While many big name institutions were failing, he sat through endless discussions with LDP members and Ministry of Finance officials to put a new Resolution and Collection Corp. system in place.

"I can only give a bottom line passing grade of 60 percent to the new system" of disposing of bankrupt banks, he says. "I give it a passing grade in a sense that the system kept things under control without a panic, but the way the government dealt with the problem was very different from what we had thought when we enacted the law."

Giving buyers of failed banks the right to nullify loans if they become bad in the future is one thing; banks not disclosing the reality of bad loan situations is another. "The problem has always been the administration--whether (finance-related ministries) do thorough examinations or whether they provide thorough disclosure," Edano says.

The LDP rule had worked in the past because they give control to Kasumigaseki, the Tokyo district where the ministries are. The problem is, as Edano sees it, that the LDP is hanging on to bureaucratic rule even though the system no longer functions properly. "Koizumi pledged last spring that the government is on top of the bad debt disposal issue," Edano says. "Instead, the only thing he did was just listen to what (former Financial Services Agency commissioner) Mori and other officials below him reported on. He thinks things are advancing, so he doesn't know why he is criticized so much."

Because Koizumi doesn't have a grasp of policy details, Kasumigaseki "is left unleashed," Edano says. Then, what should Japan do about its bad loans? Would an independent body immune from Kasumigaseki-control help? Edano's answer is no. "The only way is for us to take office," he says. "The first thing we would do after that is to kick out top FSA officials and replace them with political appointees."

Self-made man

Unlike many of his colleagues in the Diet who inherit their parents' seats, Edano is a self-made man. He was born the son of what he calls an ordinary salaried man, who later started a small factory after losing his job. Becoming a politician was Edano's childhood dream, but without the money and politi cal backing, he started out as a lawyer instead, Edano explains: "Originally, my plan was to accumulate experience before running for an election. If I hadn't been given a chance, I would have accumulated 11 years of experience by now. It may have been time for me to start thinking about running in an election."